Tag: Tracy Letts

August: Osage County, adapted by Tracy Letts from his own Pulitzer Prize winning play, has awards bait written all over it, from its spectacular ensemble cast to its succession of ravaging put downs. It’s a shame, then, that the force and effectiveness of the film, then, is let down by drab, staid direction and a tendency to be as boisterous and melodramatic as possible where a little more poignancy would have better done the trick. Continue reading “Review: August: Osage County (2013)”→

When a debt puts his life in danger, Chris (Emile Hirsch) hatches a plan to kill his unruly mother and claim her life insurance policy. With the backing of his defeated father, Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), narcissistic step-mother, Sharla (Gina Gershon), and impressionable younger sister, Dottie (Juno Temple), Chris hires Killer Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a detective who moonlights as a contract killer, to carry out the dirty work. But when they can’t afford his Continue reading “Review: Killer Joe (2011)”→